Saturday, December 26, 2015

The Big Short

The Big Short is based on the 2010 book of the same name. Written by Michael Lewis, the book looks at the financial crisis of 2007–2010 which was brought on by the build-up of the housing market and credit bubble.

The movie follows the simultaneous stories of three groups of people who discovered the groundwork for the financial crisis and managed to enormously profit from it. The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt.

In spite of the buzz about the film, I am not sure that it is going to be nominated for best picture. The film starts slow and has an odd cadence to the first twenty minutes. At best, I graded the film as a "B," while Sharon gave it a "B-". I can see Gosling getting nominated for supporting actor.

In a unique way, the film does a solid job of explaining some of the key concepts of the credit markets. Nevertheless, I am still not sure I understand what a synthetic CDO is...